KALAMAZOO, MI -- Proponents of public transportation funding met Tuesday to talk about the economic role buses, trains and other forms of transportation play in local economies.

A roundtable discussion was held as part of BlueGreen Alliance's Jobs21! initiative, co-chaired by former Congressman Mark Schauer, D-Battle Creek. The alliance is a collection of unions and environmental organizations.

The meeting at the Kalamazoo County Transportation Authority comes as Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are working on getting enough votes to pass a new highway funding bill, which has been passed by the Senate. The current bill, which expires on Saturday, includes money for local programs and projects, including Kalamazoo's Metro Transit.

Besides employing bus drivers and mechanics, public transportation is important to the economy because it takes people to and from work, roundtable participants said. In Kalamazoo, about 30 percent of riders take a Metro Transit bus to and from work, said Bill Schomisch transportation director at the Metro Transit of Kalamazoo.

If the highway bill is not passed by the end of the month, Metro Transit would have to dip into its reserves, which would last the rest of the year, Schomisch said. But it is unlikely that a bill would not be passed during that time.

Along with the increase in riders, the face of public transportation has also changed in Kalamazoo, said Marty Stone, who has worked at Metro Transit for more than 30 years and is president of the ATU Local No. 1093 union, which represent Metro Transit employees.

When he started working at Metro Transit in the late '70s, the majority of passengers rode the bus because they did not have any other means of transportation, according to Stone.

"Today we see more and more people, and have evolved to the type of a system that gives people a viable option to personal transportation," Stone said. "People are getting out of their cars and our ridership has increased dramatically."

Other members of the panel talked about different facets of why public transportation is important, including Sean McBride, executive director of the Kalamazoo County Transportation Authority; Frank Szollosi, regional outreach coordinator for the National Wildlife Federation; and Derrick James, director of government affairs at Amtrak.

Schauer said the BlueGreen Alliance's Jobs21! plan is a "win-win-win-win" proposal by "creating jobs, decreasing pollution, becoming more energy independent, becoming more globally and economically competitive."

Investment in transportation "is as good as any example I can think of that achieves those four objectives," he said.